Thread: Who would quit a job making $58000 to do this?

i doubt i would leave a 58,000 a year job with day time hours for this.. but i'm leaving an 18 dollar an hour job overnight shift next year to take a stab at this. my wife works, and we are in good enough financial shape to pull it off, and if it doesn't work.. it doesn't work.. then i go back to work for the man, except on a normal day time position. i'd take a 12 dollar an hour job in a heartbeat if it was during the day.. and if i wasn't doing this business thats where i'd be.. so its not gonna hurt me to give a solid run at this the next few years.. not gonna be a walk in the park either..

i doubt i would leave a 58,000 a year job with day time hours for this.. but i'm leaving an 18 dollar an hour job overnight shift next year to take a stab at this. my wife works, and we are in good enough financial shape to pull it off, and if it doesn't work.. it doesn't work.. then i go back to work for the man, except on a normal day time position. i'd take a 12 dollar an hour job in a heartbeat if it was during the day.. and if i wasn't doing this business thats where i'd be.. so its not gonna hurt me to give a solid run at this the next few years.. not gonna be a walk in the park either..

Hell I got laid off an $32/hr job, problem these days is you have to ask yourself, how much job security do I REALLY HAVE? it doesn't matter how much your making if your always having to look for that next job, which is the case for most of corporate America nowadays. Your pretty much disposable to the company, and now that "Right to work" has taken over they can can you in an instant with no questions ask and you have no recourse. IMOP, Self employment is the only true way to insulate yourself from this situation. Yes it has it's headaches, but so does working for someone else, and if HE has a BAD day He may just take it out on YOU! If I have a bad day I brush it off and go on about my business, get up the next day and go for it again, and the next day and the next, been at for four years now, I still have plenty of work and don't have to worry about getting canned again. Looking back I never felt safe working for the other guy, they always had the upper hand.

i hear ya there. my job is threatened and held over my head on a daily basis by my bosses. i could be gone next week. they know everything i do at all times, i have to punch in with a card to go to the bathroom.. they sit down with me everyday and analyze my every move under a microscope. they know how many boxes i stacked per hour 3 months ago between 2a.m. and 4a.m. and how many times i had to go take a leak. thats one thing i'm not going to miss.. even though, every yard i do i work as if the customer is watching me out the window.. lol.

i hear ya there. my job is threatened and held over my head on a daily basis by my bosses. i could be gone next week. they know everything i do at all times, i have to punch in with a card to go to the bathroom.. they sit down with me everyday and analyze my every move under a microscope. they know how many boxes i stacked per hour 3 months ago between 2a.m. and 4a.m. and how many times i had to go take a leak. thats one thing i'm not going to miss.. even though, every yard i do i work as if the customer is watching me out the window.. lol.

Yep, every company is doing it now, micro managing their employees to death, I was so sick if those meetings where all I heard was a bunch of negativity day after day after day, I feel so sorry for those folks now, you'll find out that once you quit worrying about money, charge what you want and prove your worth it, it'll naturally come your way, it takes a looooong time to make the switch but once you do, you WON"T go back! It's a funny thing I'll work 80hrs to keep from working 40 LOL!

In my area, 80 man hours can complete about 120 lawns. (12-20 minute lawns on a tight route). These lawns range from 20-30 per cut. So lets say average of 25 dollars for this experiment.

$25/a cut REALLY? 12-20 mins a lawn? REALLY all my customers are full service we spend an avg of 30 mins on each lawn, at an avg of $50/service grant it we don't have 120 customers YET!

Your talking two different areas, two different size lawns, full maintenance or just high end lawn maintenance(mow, trim, edge, blow) it's like comparing apples to oranges or saying to a rough carpenter u can do a house in two weeks and talk to a finish carpenter and the house could take a year.

All my lots are less than an acre, and most of them are 60x120 lots with the house and garage on a big portion of that. I have a dozen or so lawns that are in the 45-50 dollar range that take anywhere from 25-45 minPosted via Mobile Device

I'm in the process of getting all my lawn business ducks in a row-- equipment, website, insurance, etc... and am doing so just to allow myself to quit a $60k job. At 40 years old, lol. Thankfully, my wife makes good $$$ and likes her job, whereas I am stuck in a dead-end, micromanaged hell that I am trying to escape!

Besides- I actually like the physical labor, the learning curve, the exposure to the elements and the self-reliance that goes with this kind of territory. At least in my region, I think it's more than possible to make a decent living doing high-end lawn service. And even if I end up having to supplement the new biz w/a part-time job (at least in the short term), then it's still worth it for the boost my quality of life will get from trying! YMMV, as they say

I agree. I didn't leave my 60K job but decided not to chase another one. It took about 3-4 years to get where I needed to be. Surely in 2008 I would have been laid off ah=gain if I hadn't opened my own business.
As a country our business leaders need to relearn some of the principles of our forefathers instead of thinking they need Marble Columns.

i quit my auto factory job where i worked for 6 years making $50k, free benefits, 401k, etc.

i've been doing lawn care 3 years now. i'm making about half as much as i was and i have no benefits right now.

...but i made the right decision for me. i couldn't be happier. i hated my old job and no amount of money would've kept me there. life is a risk no matter what you do. sometimes you just gotta go for it. only you can make that decision for yourself.

i figure in 3-4 more years i should be making about as much as i was at my old job. it just takes time in the lawn busiiness. you don't grow overnight. personally i'd be happier just making half as much money the rest of my life if that's how it goes. you just have to adjust your standard of living to match.

good thing is i will still get a pension from my old job for $500 a month when i turn 65. that's a long time away though. i still got 30 years to work before i get to that point.

in a year or so i should be making enough to buy healthcare again on my own and then i can start putting a little back into an IRA or something each month and roll over my old 401k into it as well. SS isn't gonna be there when i retire most likely so i don't even count on it.

i dunno what all this talk about labor is. my old job was 5x as hard to do as mowing grass is. this job can get you stressed if you let it. it's all in your mindset. you gotta just relax and enjoy it. if you do that then it's the greatest job in the world. i can go home after work and i'm not tired at all where as my old job i could barely walk since my feet hurt so bad from standing on metal grates all day. if i would've stayed at my old job i probably would have died before i retired so what's the point of retirement??? there wouldn't be any. life is too short man. do what you enjoy. find a way to make it work even if it means living on less money. people in africa live their whole lives without ever having a job or making any money at all. they make it work for them.

if you have a wife and like 3 kids or something then hopefully your wife works and has benefits but if she doesn't then you probably don't wanna get into this business. it will be 5-10 years before you are on your feet. i'm single so it's easier for me to make the change. i wish i would've started when i was a teenager. if i had done that i'd be rolling in the dough by now. most people start this business and then quit because it's not quick sucess. it takes years to get to a stable position.

Thanks for the positive responses, guys. Makes me feel a little better about making the transition! Don't get me wrong- this is absolutely what I want to do, but starting a biz for the first time is still a little scary! LolPosted via Mobile Device

After 14 years full time lawn work after the shop moved that I worked at I am seriously considering returning to the shop. I hope my mind talks me out of it, I love the freedom, love the customers ,the challenge but its so damned expensive. Just as soon as we have money stacking up it all goes to taxes, licences, diesel fuel , tires. I have an offer to take a look at a full time job in a climate controlled building ,machine shop work . These last three or four years seem to be turning against the small ,mom and pop folks. Tired of it yet reasonably optimistic. I need the drive back that used to drive me and its waning .Hopefully I will proove myself wrong and will get back on track but looking at getting a couple guys full time and I think of how much has to go through the door to still make it for all of us doing it all by the book. Scary.Its like being a boxer , you climb into the ring each season and learn to bob weave faint yet it still takes a tremendous drive to be the victor. After facing the impossible and each year surviving ,its so hard to get out of your blood. Whereas I`m scared that if I become an empoyee again I will feel half alive yet on the other hand ,it would be nice to come home and do things with the family instead of working till dark....